Coronation Street is scheduled to be stripped at 9pm every night this week, with an ongoing storyline about Tony Gordon, played by Gary O'Brien, escaping from prison and holding hostages in the Underworld clothing factory, armed with a gun. Last night's episode would have featured a shooting incident.

ITV has also pulled tonight's edition of Coronation Street, in which the hostage storyline was due to continue. An ITV spokesman said the broadcaster would review the situation tomorrow before deciding whether to go ahead with Friday's 9pm Coronation Street broadcast.

The episode was replaced on ITV1 at 9pm by a repeat of Harry Hill's Best of TV Burp, which was watched by 5.922 million viewers and attracted a 25.3% audience share. Another 193,000 (0.8%) watched on ITV1 HD.

ITV1 continued to dominate peaktime viewing with the latest Britain's Got Talent semi final. On its first Wednesday outing from 7.30pm the show had 9.573 million (43.7%), with another 409,000 (1.9%) for the ITV1 HD simulcast.

The Britain's Got Talent results show attracted 8.105 million (32.6%) from 9.30pm, with 386,000 (1.6%) on ITV1 HD.